---
title: "Elon Musk: We Communicate Too Slowly for Future AI to Understand"
description: "Elon Musk believes that we will have a hard time communicating with futuristic AI because it will process information far more rapidly than we do."
date: "2019-08-30"
modified: "2019-08-30"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-communicate-slowly-future-ai"
categories:
  - "Artificial Intelligence"
  - "Elon Musk"
  - "Future Society"
  - "The Industrialists"
tags:
  - "artificial intelligence"
  - "communication"
  - "elon musk"
  - "the digest"
---

# Elon Musk: We Communicate Too Slowly for Future AI to Understand

![Elon Musk believes that we will have a hard time communicating with futuristic AI because it will process information far more rapidly than we do.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/elon-musk-communicate-slowly-ai-understand.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Images via Pixabay/Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

## Bad Connection

When scientists finally crack the code of [superhuman artificial intelligence](<https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence-hype>), verbal communication between us humans and the machines may be a total wash, according to SpaceX and Tesla leader Elon Musk.

The problem, Musk believes, comes from the different speeds at which a human and a computer can process information, [according to *Business Insider*](<https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-human-computer-communication-sounds-like-whale-speech-ai-2019-8>). Computer engineers have built processors that work at blazing-fast speeds, but our mortal brains work far slower — a disparity Musk thinks could break down future human-AI relations.

## Whale Song

Musk described how computers could process information much more rapidly than humans during a presentation on AI this week, *BI* reports.

"To a computer... a millisecond is an eternity, but to us it's nothing," Musk said. "Human speech to a computer will sound like very slow tonal wheezing, kind of like whale sounds."

## Dial-Up

Musk claims that Neuralink, his [brain-computer interface company](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/people-begging-elon-musk-skull>), could someday help us keep up with advanced AI. But until then, we may be out of luck.

"The computer will just get impatient, if nothing else," Musk said, per *BI*. "It will be like talking to a tree — that's humans."

**READ MORE:** [Elon Musk says humans communicate so slowly with computers that it will sound like whale speech to future AI](<https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-human-computer-communication-sounds-like-whale-speech-ai-2019-8>) \[*Business Insider*\]

**More on AI:** *[Advanced Artificial Intelligence Could Run The World Better Than Humans Ever Could](<https://futurism.com/advanced-artificial-intelligence-better-humans>)*

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)